"Plausible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... promised to turn night-time into day, to put white lights in Yamen, office, and house-hold. There should be a light beneath each rooftree, at no greater expense than the bean-oil lamp. They were most plausible, and many thousands of silver dollars were brought forth and given to the men as contract money. They left us to buy machinery; the years have passed; they never have returned. Ningpo still has streets of darkness, men still walk abroad with lighted lanterns, the bean-oil lamp ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... Tutt was, to be sure, an old man in years, he had occasionally an elfin, Puck-like perversity which was singularly boyish, at which times she felt it obligatory for her own self-respect to call him to order. Thus, whenever Tutt seemed to be incubating some evasion of law which seemed more subtly plausible than ordinary she made it a point to call it to Mr. Tutt's attention. Also, whenever, as in the present case, she felt that by following the advice given by the junior member of the firm a client was about to embark upon some dubious enterprise or questionable course of conduct she endeavored ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... an ailing statesman; they give out that his head is touched, and see paralysis and epilepsy in every speech and every despatch. The time, too, nearly ripe for his great schemes, made it doubly necessary that he should exert himself, and prevent being shelved with a plausible excuse of tender compassion for his infirmities. As soon therefore as he learned that Legard had left Paris, he thought himself safe for a while in that quarter, and surrendered his thoughts wholly to his ambitious projects. Perhaps, ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book IX • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... panic-stricken at this last supposition. The richest among them were the most alarmed, seeing themselves forced to empty bags of gold into the insolent soldier's hands in order to buy back their lives. They racked their brains for plausible lies whereby they might conceal the fact that they were rich, and pass themselves off as poor—very poor. Loiseau took off his watch chain, and put it in his pocket. The approach of night increased their apprehension. The lamp was lighted, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... Nature's Heart"[21] shows abundant powers of invention, but his imagination is not sufficiently well regulated for the production of a natural or even plausible story. The individual who is so intimate with nature is a young girl whose father has fled from England and hidden himself in the forests of the Hudson river on account of a quarrel with his brother, which he (erroneously) supposes to ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... would be more conscious of his own immaturity. We feel at once how different he would be from the clever lads who swarmed at Athens, youths with an infinite capacity for picking holes, and capable of saying something plausible on ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... four-story house in Sixteenth street, near the Sixth Avenue, where he purposed to spend the balance of his days in the dignified enjoyment of his hard-earned money. To this secluded oyster dealer, as solitary and happy in the midst of his new grandeur as a bivalve in its native bed, came a plausible stockbroker, who, after a series of interviews, persuaded Mr. Pillbody to make a small investment in the "Sky Blue Ridge Pure ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... am aware, to a single step. The classification begins and ends with a partition of the exigencies of society between the two heads of Order and Progress (in the phraseology of French thinkers); Permanence and Progression, in the words of Coleridge. This division is plausible and seductive, from the apparently clean-cut opposition between its two members, and the remarkable difference between the sentiments to which they appeal. But I apprehend that (however admissible for purposes of popular discourse) the distinction between Order, or Permanence and Progress, ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... Plausible arguments against the statement that up to the year 150 there was no New Testament in the Church; Sudden emergence of the New Testament in the Muratorian Fragment, in (Melito) Irenaeus and Tertullian; Conditions under which the New ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 2 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... panic-stricken. The wealthiest were the most alarmed, seeing themselves already compelled, in order to redeem their lives, to pour bags of gold into the hands of this insolent soldier. They racked their brains to find plausible and acceptable lies, conceal their wealth, pass themselves off as very poor, very poor. Loiseau took off his watch and chain and hid it in his pocket. The approaching night filled them with apprehension.—The lamp was lighted, and as they still had fully two hours before ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... easily-elegant young man, with his bright smile, affable voice, and inquisitive eyes. Panshin, with the quick insight into the feelings of others, which was peculiar to him, soon guessed that he was not giving his companion any special satisfaction, and made a plausible excuse to go away, inwardly deciding that Lavretsky might be an "excellent man," but he was unattractive, aigri, and, en somme, rather absurd. Marya Dmitrievna made her appearance escorted by Gedeonovsky, then Marfa Timofyevna and Lisa came in; and ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... the incident often destroys the possibility of belief in the ordinary superstition that it was a direct Divine revelation. This may be plausible in cases of the Strathmore, where the intelligence was communicated of the loss of an English ship, but no one can seriously hold it when the only information to be communicated was ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... the journey, anxiety, lack of food, the supreme shock, the obstinate refusal of youth to succumb, and then the sudden sight of the epileptic (with whom the doctor was acquainted): thus had run the medical reasoning, after a discreet but thorough cross-examination of her; and it had seemed so plausible and so convincing that the doctor's pride in it was plain on his optimistic face as he gave the command: "Absolute repose." But to Hilda the reasoning and the resultant phrase, 'nervous breakdown,' had meant nothing at all. Words! Empty words! She knew, profoundly ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... discussed, and inferences deduced from it. It may well be thought that he modelled his behaviour by an uncommon standard, when, with all our opportunities and accuracy of observation, we were able, for a long time, to gather no satisfactory information. He afforded us no ground on which to build even a plausible conjecture. ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... him, and sent him to his government in Asia Minor. Cyrus immediately turned all his thoughts to the plan of raising an army and making war upon his brother, in order to gain forcible possession of his throne. That he might have a plausible pretext for making the necessary military preparations, he pretended to have a quarrel with one of his neighbors, and wrote, hypocritically, many letters to the king, affecting solicitude for his safety, and asking aid. The king was thus deceived, and made no preparations to resist the force ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... sophistical excuses; they show that the author or authors of them love moral beauty and truth, and exalt the same,—as many great men, with questionable morals, give their testimony to the truths of Christianity, and utterly abhor those who poison the soul by plausible sophistries,—as Lord Brougham detested Rousseau. The famous writings of our modern times which nearest approach the Proverbs in love of truth and moral wisdom are ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... Sahara on the magnitude and importance of our mission; so that it was impossible for one Sheikh to monopolise us. Hateetah, therefore, had come, accompanied by two sons of Shafou, the nominal Sultan of all the Tuaricks of Ghat. Wataitee, the elder of the two, is very plausible, and undertakes to accompany us as far as Aheer. It is to be observed, that the Tuaricks of this place have hitherto never ventured to come to Mourzuk; and it is considered wonderful that they have come for the first time ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... reasoning power to justify conclusions already reached, whether on the basis of tradition or habit, or because of the bias or bent of a school of thought, or because of the tendency of human nature to accept plausible suggestions, is also made apparent. Through the deliberate practice of testing and weighing, the faculty of arriving swiftly at accurate decisions is strengthened and is brought more quickly into play when time is a matter of ...
— Sound Military Decision • U.s. Naval War College
... fraught with incalculable mischief, and which the considerate sense of the people has rejected, could have had countenance in no part of the country had they not been disguised by suggestions plausible in appearance, acting upon an excited state of the public mind, induced by causes temporary in their character and, it is to be hoped, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin Pierce • Franklin Pierce
... thoughts like a man amid tossing waves, groping about in the dark for a plank to float upon, but could find none. Still, in spite of himself, in spite of his violent asseverations that "it was IMPOSSIBLE;" in spite of Cadet's plausible theory of robbers,—which Bigot at first seized upon as the likeliest explanation of the mystery,—the thought of Angelique ever returned back upon ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... purpose of upsetting her. This was an interesting point in the proceedings, because few there had seen a self-righting boat, and, as usual, there was a large sprinkling in the crowd of that class of human beings who maintain the plausible, but false, ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... low taxes and vanishing expenditures. I can see an opportunity for its candidates to pose as the apostles of retrenchment and reform. I am not one of those who believe votes are to be won by misrepresentations, skilful presentations of half truths, and plausible deductions from false premises. Good government cannot be found on the bargain-counter. We have seen samples of bargain-counter government in the past when low tax rates were secured by increasing the bonded debt for current expenses or refusing to keep our institutions ...
— Have faith in Massachusetts; 2d ed. - A Collection of Speeches and Messages • Calvin Coolidge
... if you like, mother. I have no doubt he will smooth you over. Checkynshaw is a plausible man—Checkynshaw is. He carries too many guns for a woman. I would call myself if it were not for letting myself down to his level," said Mr. Wittleworth, stroking his chin, when his ...
— Make or Break - or, The Rich Man's Daughter • Oliver Optic
... garbled piece of fiction, most obviously; as such it has ever been treated; but it is as plausible as it is untrue, and, at least, as authoritative as any available evidence ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... There came plausible men who knew our tongue and the argument was bluntly put to us that we ought to let expediency be our guide in all things. Yet we were expected to trust the men who ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... to the disciplinary court, all the prelates of the Kingdom were struck by it: some were degraded and turned out to subsist as they might, on charity or by the sale of their holy vestments; others were sentenced to humiliating punishments; and {209} where no plausible excuse for a trial could be discovered, exile or confinement was inflicted arbitrarily. On the other hand, as many as repented received plenary absolution. For instance, the Bishops of Demetrias and Gytheion were deprived for having cursed M. Venizelos; but on promising ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... For what plausible reason are these principalities suffered to exist? When a government is rendered complex, (which in itself is no desirable thing,) it ought to be for some political end which cannot be answered otherwise. Subdivisions ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... wondered whether Donna Tullia's vanity would suffer if he told her that the duel had not been fought for anything which concerned her. But he reflected that her supposition was very plausible, and that he himself had no evidence. Furthermore, and in spite of his good-natured treatment of Giovanni, he was very angry at the thought that his son had quarrelled about the Duchessa. When Giovanni should be recovered from his wounds he intended to speak his mind ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... investigation, have been content to trace, if possible, the route of Verrazzano and point out the places he explored, seeking merely to reconcile the account with the actual condition and situation of the country. Their explanations, though sometimes plausible, are often contradictory, and not unfrequently absurd. Led into an examination of its merits with impressions in its favor, we have nevertheless been compelled to adopt the conclusion of a late American writer, that it is utterly fictitious. [Footnote: ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy
... about it? Well, it appears to me that there is only one plausible explanation possible. If the secret of your retreat has not been betrayed—and I cannot conceive how you could have been betrayed or what imprudence you or yours could have committed—my opinion is that this submarine ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... her breast, her countenance made her denial to be believed; but the peverseness of her manners declared at the same time her dissimulation in these proceedings; but Pheroras was caught between them, and had nothing plausible to offer in his own defense, while he confessed that he had said what was charged upon him, but was not believed when he said he had heard it from Salome; so the confusion among them was increased, and their quarrelsome words one to another. At last the king, out of his hatred ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... made Henrietta more than ever curious. She asked the priest about it and even he was inclined to be evasive. He evidently either knew nothing about it or was casting about in his mind for some plausible explanation. At last he said that rumour had it that a huntsman's family had either been murdered or had committed suicide there, and, ever since, nobody dwelling in the district could be persuaded to cross its threshold, let alone steal anything out ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... glimmered in his eyes, and his wide, affable smile was subtle with anticipation of a diplomatic test. He was secretly amused that Emmet should presume upon his blushing honours in this fashion, but doubtless the man had a plausible excuse for his intrusion, some civic scheme for which he wished to bespeak cooperation. After his humiliation the previous night, he had conceived a plan for drawing some of his opponents into his own camp, and this was perhaps the first movement of ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... habit of taking a long time to deliver his orders, and he always has some plausible excuse for the delay—although I never accept his excuses. It isn't the way to bring up a boy. But he doesn't steal, and I don't let him go out nights, so he can't have any companions. But why do you ask? What business of ...
— Bob Chester's Grit - From Ranch to Riches • Frank V. Webster
... the girl, 'let me take off my wet clothes and I will tell you everything.' She wished to gain time to concoct a plausible story, for she did not intend ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... statement, the prince questioned him, and was told a plausible story by the young man. He had escaped the murderer, he said, the boy who died being the son of a serf, who resembled and had been substituted for him by his physician Simon, who knew what Boris designed. The physician had fled ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... very great majority of the gentlemen, clergy and freeholders of the county of Berks signed an address, November 7th, to the king in which it was declared that "the disorders have arisen from a complaint (plausible at least) of one right violated; and we can never be brought to imagine that the true remedy for such disorders consists in an attack on all other rights, and an attempt to drive the people either to unconstitutional submission or absolute despair." The gentlemen, merchants, freemen ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... their strength was waning. Dick wanted to kill the other dog. His argument was plausible. The toboggan was now very light. The men could draw it. They would have the ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... is a serious question with a portion of the colonists, whether or not the apprenticeship was originally designed as a preparation for freedom. This however was the professed object with its advocates, and it was on the strength of this plausible pretension, doubtless, that the measure was carried through. We believe it is pretty well understood, both in England and the colonies; that it was mainly intended as an additional compensation to the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... began to come to his sister, not only for advice, but for money. Margaret believed at first that she was only supplying Walter's sudden loss, but when her cash was all gone, and Ronald urged her to mortgage her rents she resolutely shut her ears to all his plausible promises, and refused to "throw ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... wrought into a somewhat plausible form by the brilliant and imposing generalizations of Aug. Comte. The religious phenomena of the world are simply one stage in the necessary development of mind, whether in the individual or the race. He claims to have been the first to discover the great law of the three successive ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... being an exceedingly foolish as well as reprobate person, who not only deserts a beautiful, charming, and affectionate wife, but treats his lower-class loves shabbily, and allows himself to be swindled and fooled to the nth by an adventuress of fashion and a plausible speculator. On the other hand, one of this book's rather numerous grisettes, Ninie, is of the more if not most gracious of that questionable but not unappetising sisterhood. Dubois, the funny man, and Jolivet, the parsimonious reveller, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... Pentheus in our author's noble play, the "Bacchae," appears to have given origin to the tradition that he himself was torn to pieces by dogs. If we reflect that this play was probably the last of his works, the mistake seems a plausible one. The death of Euripides, which probably happened in the ordinary course of nature, has, like that of AEschylus, been associated with ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... old man's tale; whether the offspring of his fertile imagination, or actually founded upon fact, so plausible did it appear, and so much interested was I in his narration, that it became forcibly imprinted on my memory, and I have minutely ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... by plausible logic, mental suggestion, and good cheer to the hospital patients, brought many a smile through a mist ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... alive we were still left to our conjectures; the rain would, long before day, wipe out all marks of the transaction; by this we must profit. The Master had unexpectedly come after the fall of night; it must now be given out he had as suddenly departed before the break of day; and, to make all this plausible, it now only remained for me to mount into the man's chamber, and pack and conceal his baggage. True, we still lay at the discretion of the traders; but that was the incurable ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... there was the theory about the Prince and his suite, and to this day I fancy there are plenty of people in Liverpool, and also in London, who declare that the so-called Russian police officer was a confederate. No doubt that theory was very plausible, and Messrs. Winslow and Vassall spent a good deal of money in trying to prove a case against ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... Genesis is a part of nature like any other part of nature. The fact that the tale of the Garden of Eden has survived and held the imagination of men spellbound for centuries, whilst hundreds of much more plausible and amusing stories have gone out of fashion and perished like last year's popular song, is a scientific fact; and Science is bound to explain it. You tell me that Science knows nothing of it. Then Science is more ignorant than the children at ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... of Walker's, though each in itself may seem clear and plausible, are undoubtedly, in several respects, confused and self-contradictory. Open and shut are here inconsistently referred first to one principle of distinction, and then to another;—first, (as are "open ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... eventually married Madeleine, elder daughter of Francis I., having been previously betrothed 'by treaty' to Marie de Bourbon, daughter of the Duke of Vendome, returned to Scotland in 1537. The theory is neither probable nor plausible. ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... This proposal was all very plausible and nice on the surface, but Sir Norman with his usual penetration and acuteness, looked farther than the ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... perhaps, but is more unerring than far fetched theory on many occasions. This was seen in a most exemplary manner, at the time that the principles of the French revolution were most approved of here. Those principles were plausible, though flimsy, and founded on sophisms, and a species of reasoning, that plain unlettered men could not answer, and men who did give themselves the pains to reason might have answered; yet, three times in four, it was the man who could not answer it, who, guided ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... ever showed her receipted bills, and not a few of them openly averred that certain burglaries of their goods had plausible connection with her presence in port. Be this as it may, the fact stood that farmers on the coast who saw her high bow and unmistakable hawse-pipes when she ran in for bait invariably double-locked their barns and chicken-coops, and turned loose ...
— "Where Angels Fear to Tread" and Other Stories of the Sea • Morgan Robertson
... a plausible sound," said Captain Wellsby. "My intention was to wait, but I shall have to ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... frequently observed that though we cannot hope to reach perfection in any thing, yet that it must always be advantageous to us to place before our eyes the most perfect models. This observation has a plausible appearance, but is very far from being generally true. I even doubt its truth in one of the most obvious exemplifications that would occur. I doubt whether a very young painter would receive so much benefit, from ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... was to let the opposite arguments be stated as fully and completely as possible, himself aiding, and often adducing the most forcible and plausible arguments against his own views; and then, all having been well stated, he would proceed to utterly undermine and demolish the whole fabric, and bring out the truth in such a way as to convince all honest minds. It was ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... Nevertheless, this plausible Arian confession will not bear examination. It is only the philosophy of the day put into a Christian dress. It starts from the accepted belief that the unity of God excludes not only distinctions inside the divine nature, but also contact with the world. Thus the God of Arius is an ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... from want of rain, which it so frequently is, then the conjurers are in great demand: they are sent for to produce rain. If, after all their pretended mysteries, the rain does not fall so as to save their reputation, they give some plausible reason, generally ending, however, in the sacrifice of some innocent individual; and thus they go on, making excuses after excuses until the rain does fall, and they obtain all the credit of it. I need hardly say that these ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... that space could not have been created by God, since its non-existence is inconceivable, is much more plausible. But suppose we grant that space, supposed to be a real existence, was not created in time. Does it follow from that, that it does not proceed from God? Not being an event in time, it does not require a cause; but being conceived of as a reality, it may have eternally proceeded ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... half as long, and is a well-written and extremely plausible story about a house owned by an old gentleman of ancient lineage, where there is a collection of gold plate which was said to be an "incubus", that is, the subject of a curse. As indeed there turns ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... he been waiting outside the door of the office? Why had he followed her? How had he known that she was employed in the exacting services of Bonsfield & Co.? All these questions gyrated wildly in her mind, swept about, confused at finding no plausible ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... had not been indoctrinated into the zoology of our waysides. I have heard a man out of health, hypochondriac, and idle, recommended to begin botany, geology, or chemistry, as a diversion of his misery. The idea is plausible and superficial. An overpowering taste for any subject—botany, zoology, antiquities, music—is properly affirmed to be born with a man. The forces of the brain must from the first incline largely to that one species of impressions, to which must be added years of engrossing pursuit. We may ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... her the continuance of her first affection; his unjust unkindness, that in all reason should have quenched her love, hath, like an impediment in the current, made it more violent and unruly. Go you to Angelo; answer his requiring with a plausible obedience; agree with his demands to the point: only refer yourself to this advantage,—first, that your stay with him may not be long; that the time may have all shadow and silence in it; and the place answer to convenience: this being granted in course, and now follows ...
— Measure for Measure • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... the gold he had taken from his claim. The latter was his chief asset not from its amount, but its nature. Therefore he had been forced to take the leading merchant in the little prairie city into his confidence, and to suggest a partnership. This he had done, and a plausible tongue, and the sight of the wonderful raw gold, had had the effect he desired. The partnership was arranged, the immediate finance was forthcoming, and, for the time at least, Leeson Butte was left in utter ignorance of its ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... opportunities, and there can be no doubt that as soon as his purpose had established itself in his mind he made use of every opportunity that presented itself for improving his meagre scientific knowledge, in order that his proposal might be set forth in a plausible form. In other words, he got up the subject. The whole of his geographical reading with regard to the Indies up to this time had been in the travels of Marco Polo; the others—whose works he quoted from ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... special construction of the word "sudden." It seems a petition indulged rather and conceded to human infirmity than exacted from human piety. It is not so much a doctrine built upon the eternities of the Christian system as a plausible opinion built upon special varieties of physical temperament. Let that, however, be as it may, two remarks suggest themselves as prudent restraints upon a doctrine which else may wander, and has wandered, into an uncharitable superstition. The first ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... out that expedient (which he had learned in Holland) of raising money upon the security of taxes, that were only sufficient to pay a large interest. The motives which prevailed on people to fall in with this project were many, and plausible; for supposing, as the ministers industriously gave out, that the war could not last above one or two campaigns at most, it might be carried on with very moderate taxes; and the debts accruing would, in process of time, be easily cleared after a peace. Then the ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... she seems," he admitted. "I fear that I should only be a bungler in your profession, Mr. Quest, but if there is anything I can do to help you to discover her whereabouts, you can count upon me. Personally, I am convinced that Craig will return to me with some plausible explanation as to what has happened. In that case he will doubtless bring news ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... carried away a victim as easily as a cat would a mouse. In that case the others would have followed in pursuit. But then they would assuredly have taken their rifles with them. The more I tried to think it out with my confused and weary brain the less could I find any plausible explanation. I searched round in the forest, but could see no tracks which could help me to a conclusion. Once I lost myself, and it was only by good luck, and after an hour of wandering, that I found ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... so prudently he carried his joy, that, dissembling his true name and quality, he pretended to the shepherd that he was only some foreigner who by stress of weather had put into that port; and framed on the sudden a story to make it plausible, how he had come from Crete in a ship of Phaeacia; when the young shepherd, laughing, and taking Ulysses's hand in both his, said to him: "He must be cunning, I find, who thinks to overreach you. What, cannot you quit your wiles and your subtleties, now that you ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB
... there was a faint bluish spot on the sleeve of the shirt. This made Ben's story a plausible one, though not conclusive. The superintendent decided to inquire of Mike about the matter, and see what explanation ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... Oh, silent? Do you know, you bear yourself Exactly as, in curious dreams I've had How felons, this wild earth is full of, look When they're detected, still your kind has looked! The bravo holds an assured countenance, The thief is voluble and plausible, But silently the slave of lust has crouched When I have fancied it before a ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... sufficiently odious throughout the whole country; and it only required this last act of theirs to render them as despicable as they were detested. As soon as they gave notice of their intention to bring forward the Catholic claims, the old leaven, the refuse of the Pitt faction, who had only wanted a plausible opportunity, began to bellow aloud for the safety of Mother Church, and the Protestant Ascendancy; declaring that the church, the established religion, was in danger. They had always their intriguers about the person of the old bigotted King George the Third, who immediately took the alarm, or ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... Trent mounted the stairway outside the library door he seemed to rise into certainty of achievement. A host of guesses and inferences swarmed apparently unsorted through his mind; a few secret observations that he had made, and which he felt must have significance, still stood unrelated to any plausible theory of the crime; yet as he went up he seemed to know indubitably that light was ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... opinion. "I know, I know," he said. "It's very rum—you must naturally find it so. I know exactly how you feel about it. Oh, rum's the only word for it. Or rummy. Yes, you might call it rummy—or a go, you know—or anything like that." Then he grew plausible. "But I'm sure it's all right. It's a long story, but I'm quite sure. You've no idea what a fine girl that is. Ah, but I know it." He tapped his forehead. "I saw the whole thing through—from beginning to end. She's a ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... reach your ears, and you would believe the child willfully eloped with me. I swear to you no impure thought ever crossed that child's brain. I gave her a very satisfactory explanation as to why I had started so false a report. In her innocence—it seemed plausible—she did ...
— Daisy Brooks - A Perilous Love • Laura Jean Libbey
... prospective mother is often excitable. She waited a day, a week—who knows how long? And then she set out to follow him. Alas! she was wild to do such a thing. And it cost her life. She died at the little riverine town of Badillo, after her babe, Carmen, was born. Is it not plausible?" ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... seeing the great plea was to commence, Thirty good Knights were called by Ganelon Out of his kin, and one among them makes A speech all others hark: 'tis Pinabel Of Castel de Sorence, of greatest skill In words, and apt with reason plausible; Withal, a vassal brave to guard his arms. Thus to him Ganelon:—"In you my trust I place; my life from death, my name from shame Preserve!"—Said Pinabel:—"Thou shalt be saved. Dare one French Knight condemn thee to be hanged, ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier
... plausible; but I do not find it adequate. The first objection is that the same smell of bathos haunts the soul in the case of all deliberate and elaborate visits to "beauty spots," even by persons of the most elegant position or the most protected ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... in the premises. Probably a certain Dr. C. is more largely read for information on these matters than any other author, especially among young women. He has written a large, and from the view-point he takes, a very plausible volume; and it is very extensively advertised, especially in papers which young women read. The result is that it has come to be almost a ...
— Sane Sex Life and Sane Sex Living • H.W. Long
... name, and the number of a man, and said to be six hundred threescore and six. The pope wears upon his pontifical crown in jeweled letters, this title: "Vicarius Filii Dei," "Vicegerent of the Son of God;" the numerical value of which title is just six hundred and sixty-six. The most plausible supposition we have ever seen on this point is that here we find the number in question. It is the number of the beast, the papacy; it is the number of his name; for he adopts it as his distinctive ...
— The United States in the Light of Prophecy • Uriah Smith
... thunderbolt, a regular thunderbolt! And how I met him! I didn't believe in the thunderbolt, not for a minute. You could see it for yourself; and how could I? Even afterwards, when you had gone and he began making very, very plausible answers on certain points, so that I was surprised at him myself, even then I didn't believe his story! You see what it is to be as firm as a rock! No, thought I, Morgenfrueh. What has Nikolay got to do ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... retained for a time, and then abandoned for some other that seemed more plausible. For the next two weeks, Mrs. Jones was very unhappy. She did not meet Mrs. Todd during that period, but she saw a number of her friends, to whom either she or Mrs. Lyon had communicated the fact already stated. All declared the conduct ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... wayfarer or householder who will not pay them; others feign various diseases, or make artificial wounds and disfigurations to excite pity, or take a religious garb, or drag chains to show that they had escaped from galleys, or have other plausible tales of woe and {559} of adventure. All contemporaries testify to the alarming numbers of these men and women; how many they really were it is hard to say. It has been estimated that in 1500 20 per cent. of the population of Hamburg and 15 per cent. of the population ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... very learned tutor had to instruct me in navigation. Nothing was too high or too low for him. Had any persons wished to have taken lessons in judicial astrology, Mr Riprapton would not have refused the pupil. Plausible ignorance will always beat awkward knowledge, when the ignorant, which is generally the case, make up the ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... conscientiously from the establishment, but that he resists truth for the sake of faction,—that he abets diversity of opinions in religion to distract the state, and to destroy the peace of his country. This is the only plausible,—for there is no true ground of persecution. As the laws stand, therefore, let us see how we have thought ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... well; now to proceed, for I would gladly know, whether the grounds are plausible ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... of kindling the fire at these periodic festivals is the analogy of the need-fire, which has almost always been produced by the friction of wood, and sometimes by the revolution of a wheel. It is a plausible conjecture that the wheel employed for this purpose represents the sun,[814] and if the fires at the regularly recurring celebrations were formerly produced in the same way, it might be regarded as a confirmation of the view that they were originally sun-charms. In point of fact there is, as ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... over his surprise. He cast about for plausible explanations. But the fact was there before him. Two rows of teeth, cutting through the thin red peel, had left their regular, semicircular bite clearly in the pulp of the fruit. They were clearly marked ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... upon to remove a little the taint of the miraculous and preternatural which adheres to such anecdotes, by entering into the psychological grounds of their possibility; whether lying in any peculiarly vicious education, early familiarity with bad models, corrupting associations, or other plausible key to effects, which, taken separately, and out of their natural connection with their explanatory causes, are apt rather to startle and revolt the feelings of sober thinkers. Except, perhaps, in some chapters of Italian history, as, for example, among the most profligate ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... to undertake to get the draft cashed for them, and not to account for the difference. It may have helped to hasten his catastrophe. Moy I never should have suspected; Archie says he should once have done so as little; but he was a plausible fellow, and would do things on the sly, while all along appearing to old Proudfoot as a mentor to George. Archie seemed to feel his prosperity the bitterest pill of all—reigning like one of the squirearchy ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... though he knew they must sound passing strange, but on the spur of the moment he could not think what else to say and he hoped that the belief he would create that his mind was affected would relieve him of further questioning, for if put to it and pinned down, what could he say, what plausible account could he give of the bottle? To his surprise, the stranger gave no evidence of other than a complete acceptance of his statement and continuing to make inquiries in a most respectful and courteous way, Mr. Middleton felt he could not be less mannerly ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... fifty times in the last ten years; and, though we have often felt impelled to oppose some of the schemes which he has brought forward, it has been because they were bad for the town, and perhaps because, even though they did seem plausible, we knew that the unscrupulous gang that was behind these schemes would in some way turn them into a money-making plot to rob the people. We never could see that justification in the Statesman's position. ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White
... of deep waters has often been made plausible by adding the hypothesis that the accumulating mud of centuries has filled up the lakes, so that they now are only shallow ponds. But this by no means removes the difficulty, for then, as now, the waters of the southern laguna flowed into Tezcuco, conveying with them ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... the velocity of such intermediate reactions is greater than that of the total change, such an explanation may suffice, but a more certain proof of this theory of catalysis has only been reached in a few cases, though in many others it appears very plausible. Hence it is hardly possible to interpret all catalytic processes on ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... It was a plausible perjury, and several innocent persons came forward to strengthen it. They had seen Chester down upon the ice, and had been told that he was intoxicated; so in good faith, and with no intention of ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... affirms that it is unjust to punish at all; for the criminal did not make his own character; his education, and the circumstances which surround him, have made him a criminal, and for these he is not responsible. All these opinions are extremely plausible; and so long as the question is argued as one of justice simply, without going down to the principles which lie under justice and are the source of its authority, I am unable to see how any of these reasoners can be refuted. For, in truth, every one of the three builds upon rules of justice ...
— Utilitarianism • John Stuart Mill
... the same weight of precious metal performed in 1913.[2] If a few articles were then actually dearer, they were comparatively unimportant and were balanced by other articles even more than ten times as cheap. But a dollar will buy so many articles now which did not exist in former ages that a plausible case can be made out for the paradox that money is now worth more than it ever was before. If an ounce of gold would in Luther's time exchange for a much larger quantity of simple necessaries than it will purchase now, on the other hand a man with an ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... I replied, "the argument sounds not only plausible, but reasonable, and inexperienced persons might use the argument, believing it to be a sound and good one. I must, however, confess that I have been surprised to see this argument used by persons who must surely know that there is no weight in ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... writer. Mackintosh, said Coleridge,[126] is the 'king of the men of talent'; by which was intimated that, as a man of talent, he was not, like some people, a man of genius. Mackintosh, that is, was a man to accept plausible formulae and to make them more plausible; not a man to pierce to the heart of things, or reveal fruitful germs of thought. His intellect was judicial; given to compromises, affecting a judicious via media, and endeavouring to reconcile antagonistic tendencies. Thoroughgoing ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... alternating machines have, like those of the Ruhmkorff coil, a definite direction, which would be that of currents having the greatest tension, that is to say, that of direct currents. This hypothesis seems to us the more plausible in that Mr. J. Van Malderem has demonstrated that the attraction of solenoids with the currents, not straight, of magneto-electric machines is almost as great as that of the same solenoids with straight currents; and it is very likely that the difference which may then exist should be ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... your way to the goad of your hope, O plausible Mr. Perkins, You'll need ten tons of the softest soap And butter a thousand firkins. The soap you could put to a better use In washing your hands of ambition Ere the butter's used for cooking your goose To a ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce
... advice. But advice without example seldom produces lasting good; in truth, precept had the very worst effect upon Lorenzo,—it had proved his ruin! His singular and mysterious departure might for a time be excused,—even accounted for in some plausible manner, but suspicion was a stealing monster that would play upon the deeply tinctured surface, and soar above in disgrace. That the Rovero family were among the first of the State would not be received as a palliation; they had suffered reverses of fortune, and, with the addition ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... and reducing theirs to a single circuit. The latter showed to the Attorney-General a drawing, which I obtained sight of, of a method by which he proposed a bungling imitation of my first characters, those that were printed in our journals, and one, however plausible on paper, and sufficiently so to deceive the Attorney-General, was perfectly impracticable. Partiality, from national or other motives, aside from the justice of the case, I am persuaded, influenced the ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... But allowing Matter to exist, and the notion of absolute existence to be clear as light; yet, was this ever known to make the creation more credible? Nay, hath it not furnished the atheists and infidels of all ages with the most plausible arguments against a creation? That a corporeal substance, which hath an absolute existence without the minds of spirits, should be produced out of nothing, by the mere will of a Spirit, hath been looked upon as a thing so contrary to all reason, so ...
— Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists • George Berkeley
... itself visible to our eyes, than a substance purely spiritual; but this is not the place to reason on a philosophical question, on which different hypotheses could be freely grounded, and to choose that which should explain these appearances in the most plausible manner, even though it answer in the most satisfactory manner the question asked, and the objections formed against the facts, and against the ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... thoughtful people were always a small minority. They were able to impose their will upon a reluctant or indifferent majority partly because the increasingly offensive nature of German military and diplomatic policy made plausible opposition to American participation very difficult, but still more because of the overwhelming preponderance of pro-Ally conviction in the intellectual life of the country. If the several important ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman
... with airy shadows! The reasoning may be plausible, but it is no better than sophistry. Thou must be taught, fair and unsuspecting virgin, under a beautiful outside to apprehend deceit; and to guard against the thorn which closely environs the flower. Thou must learn, loveliest of thy sex, to dread the poison of flattery. ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... I heard. I had served Mrs. Davis faithfully, and she had learned to place the greatest confidence in me. At first I was almost tempted to go South with her, for her reasoning seemed plausible. At the time the conversation was closed, with my promise to ...
— Behind the Scenes - or, Thirty years a slave, and Four Years in the White House • Elizabeth Keckley
... them was that Susie Rolliffe had kept her word and had been to the farm more than once; but the girl had been as reticent as the mother. Zeke was now on his way home to prosecute his suit in person, and Zeb well knew how forward and plausible he could be. There was no deed of daring that he would not promise to perform after spring opened, and Zeb reasoned gloomily that a present lover, impassioned and importunate, would stand a better chance than an absent one who had never been able ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... and the number of the writers as little. The secretaries may have been many—the historian was one and the same, and he infallible. This is the MINOR of the syllogism, and if it could be proved, the conclusion would be at least plausible; and there would be but one objection to the procedure, namely, its uselessness. For if it had been proved already, what need of proving it over again, and by means—the removal, namely, of apparent contradictions—which ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... He missed his headpiece, the instigator of the plot. 'Well, it was like this, my lady,' he began, turning to Lady Georgina, and wriggling to gain time. 'You see, his lordship and Mr. Higginson——' he twirled his thumbs and tried to invent something plausible. ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... brought to light by the gospel. Where there is no vision, hope perishes. The only plausible creed for him who rejects it is the eternal tomb, and the heart-chilling inscription: "Death is an ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... sketchily remind me, at least in that of certain other of his studies in that field of the precarious, the ambiguous Paris over parts of which the great Arch at the top of the Champs-Elysees flings, at its hours, by its wide protective plausible shadow, a precious mantle of "tone." They gather, these chequered parts, into its vast paternal presence and enjoy at its expense a degree of reflected dignity. It was to the big square villa of the Rue Balzac that we turned, as pupils not unacquainted with vicissitudes, from a scene ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... in Paris, as he saw that I treated my situation, based on such trivial hopes, with a humour that charmed him even against his better judgment. He tried to think how he could help me without prejudicing my future. With this object he wanted me to make a more or less plausible sketch of my future plans, so that on his approaching visit to our native land he might procure some help for me. I happened just at that time to have come to an exceedingly promising understanding with the management of the Theatre ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... things that can't be accepted and are declined in advance." And this duty that was incumbent upon Odette, of going to the Hippodrome, to which Swann thus gave way, seemed to him to be not merely ineluctable in itself; but the mark of necessity which stamped it seemed to make plausible and legitimate everything that was even remotely connected with it. If, when Odette, in the street, had acknowledged the salute of a passer-by, which had aroused Swann's jealousy, she replied to his questions by associating the stranger with any of the two or three paramount duties of which ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... first instance the phenomena of memory. The theory of memory which relates it to an imaginary rearrangement of physical molecules of brain matter, going on at every instant of our lives, is one that presents itself as plausible to no one who can ascend one degree above the thinking level of the uncompromising atheistical materialist. To every one who accepts, as even a reasonable hypothesis, the idea that a man is something more than a carcase in a state of animation, it must be a reasonable hypothesis that ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... flatterer observing this moulds himself like material and demeans himself accordingly, seeking completely to imitate and resemble those whom he desires to ingratiate himself with, being supple in change, and plausible in his imitations, so ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... of those whose heads (though no giants) are constantly enveloped in clouds (which that name imports) will never become extinct. The attempt to vanquish the innumerable heads of one of those aforementioned discourses may supply us with a plausible interpretation of the second labour of Hercules, and his successful experiment with fire ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... it. Is it right that they should be disturbed with the religious differences and theological subtleties which have already divided into innumerable sects the universal family of Christians whom God made one? Is it fair or merciful to whisper into their ears the plausible reasons of dissatisfaction, envy, and complaining, to which the uninformed of all classes but too eagerly listen? I have ever found the religious and the political propagandist united in the same individual. The man ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... bank would never give up the sealed packages contents unknown, save on surrender of the carefully drawn receipts." And then Berthe remembered her own secret work at Calcutta. The Grindlays knew of the surreptitious attempts made by the plausible Hugh Fraser to withdraw the deposit long before the baronetcy episode. And Berthe laughed, in memory of her capture of the receipts in the old days at Brighton, while looking for ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... dust out of the papers that cumbered it. "Ventregris! How am I served? For what do I pay you, and feed you, and house you, good-for-naught, if you are to fail me whenever I need the things you call your brains? Have you no intelligence, no thought, no imagination? Can you invent no plausible business, no likely rising, no possible disturbances that shall justify my sending Aubran and his men to Montelimar—to the ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... states little particulars, and relates circumstances, so closely connected with acknowledged facets, that the most cautious and incredulous are often taken in by him. He is a constitutional liar; and the fellow has such a plausible mode of lying, and wears throughout such a fixed and solemn phiz, that his news has been circulated by us all, with all our wise reasons, and explanations, and conjectures, that although we are sometimes angry ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... part of their performance, they were required to simulate intoxication. A certain representative of Cassio was wont to carry to the theatre a bottle of claret from his own cellar, whenever he was called upon to sustain that character. It took possession of him too thoroughly, he said, with a plausible air, to allow of his affecting inebriety after holding an empty goblet to his lips, or swallowing mere toast-and-water or small beer. Still his precaution had its disadvantages. The real claret he consumed might make his intemperance somewhat too genuine and accurate; and his portrayal of ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... three degrees, we should then be within one hundred and twenty miles of the Coanza, and find no difficulty in following it down to the coast near Loanda. This was the logical deduction; but, as is the case with many a plausible theory, one of the premises was decidedly defective. The Coanza, as we afterward found, does not come from any where near the ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... six weeks ago. Or the papers could have been sent to her to sign, if her signature were imperative. . . . And in spite of the fact that everybody had taken the engagement for granted, she had, with wholly insufficient reasons,—as he saw, now that he was removed from the influence of her plausible and dominating self,—refused to announce it. Could it be that in the depths of her mind—unadmitted by her consciousness—she had never intended to marry him? Was that old revulsion paramount? . . . Sixteen ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... names are read as Akausha, Luku, Tursha, Shartana or Shardana, and Sheklusha, and whom most modern historians of Egypt identify with the Achaeans Laconians, Tyrsenians, Sardinians, and Sicilians. If these identifications are accepted—- and they are at least plausible—we shall have to suppose that, as early as the fourteenth century B.C., the nations of Southern Europe were so far advanced as to launch fleets upon the Mediterranean, to enter into a regular league with an African prince, and in conjunction with him to ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... of knowledge and science an different shores; though, alas! as to "religion and virtue;" I fear that these, like the Mediterranean, are almost without their tides. For a "progress" in the former,—in the race collectively.—far more plausible arguments can be adduced than for a progress in the latter; yet how much might be said that appears to militate even against that. Think of the frequent and signal checks to civilization; its transference ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... time. His life perhaps depended upon his escape. He may have dropped the cloak," shrewdly, "and some friend found it and returned it to the Chevalier. A plausible ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... argument, indeed, plausible as it is, is based on a series of confusions, due, in part, to deliberate obscuring of the issue, in part to the vagueness of the phrase "Home Rule," and to the general ignorance of the origin and real nature of the British ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... Continent? What was the shape of South-Eastern Asia? Was Ptolemy's longitude to be wholly accepted, and if not, how was it to be bettered? By a use of Strabo and of Albateny rather than of Ptolemy, Massoudy arrived at fairly accurate and very plausible results. His chief novelties were the long river channel from the Sea of Azov to the North Sea, and the strait between South Africa and the shadowy Southern Continent. On his scheme the Indian Ocean, or Sea of Habasch, contains ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... was too plausible to be rejected; and giving Robert an hour of uninterrupted discourse with his companion, it struck him as having more advantages than any other mentioned. The party near the mills, too, remaining perfectly quiet, there was less occasion for any ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... is easy to understand, and is therefore plausible, but I do not believe that it is accurate. It is not true that American energy has been absorbed by business. Politics, and politics of a creative character, has never lacked good blood in the United States. Organization, ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... the threat that her father and mother, those she ached and longed for, could be told the story in such a manner as would brand her as a woman with a shameful secret. How could she explain herself? There were the awful, written words. He was her husband. He was remorseless, plausible. She dared not write freely. She had no witnesses to call upon. She had discovered that he had planned with composed steadiness that misleading impressions should be given to servants and village people. When the Brents returned to the vicarage, ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... joined by an acquaintance of Samuel's, who seems to have been of a curious turn of mind, and cross-questioned him as to where he was going and why. Samuel, with more readiness than could have been expected from his recent behaviour, invented a story that sounded plausible enough, explaining Johnstone to be a young man whom he had picked up on the road, and had taken into his service at low wages, owing to his want of a character. The stranger was satisfied, and after a prolonged drink they separated, when Samuel informed Johnstone that the man was one ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... (MS. in), which does not satisfy metrical requirements, Iadopt Kluge's plausible substitution of miltse; miltse witan to show (know, feel), pity. The myne wisse of Beowulf ...
— Anglo-Saxon Grammar and Exercise Book - with Inflections, Syntax, Selections for Reading, and Glossary • C. Alphonso Smith
... more kindly disposed towards him than she herself knew. All she had wanted was to be able to care for him, to find some consistency in him, something to respect, and to which she could pin her faith; but now she knew him for what he was exactly—shallow, pretentious, plausible, vulgar-minded, without principle; a man of false pretensions and vain professions; utterly untrustworthy; saying what would suit himself at the moment, or just what occurred to him, not what he thought, but ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... read descriptions of the condition and mode of living of the colored people of the South, I often thought that those descriptions were very highly colored, but I am now perfectly cured of all my doubts. My visits furnish me with the most plausible attestation of the facts. Squalor, with its long train of attendants, may be commonly seen in every direction, and perhaps not confined to the lower-conditioned of our people either. The desecration of the Lord's day is actually ...
— American Missionary, Vol. XLII., May, 1888., No. 5 • Various
... concupiscence gets into our hearts." They reveal our thoughts, and as they say, frons animi index, but the eye of the countenance, [4978]Quid procacibus intuere ocellis? &c. I may say the same of smiling, gait, nakedness of parts, plausible gestures, &c. To laugh is the proper passion of a man, an ordinary thing to smile; but those counterfeit, composed, affected, artificial and reciprocal, those counter-smiles are the dumb shows and prognostics of greater matters, which they most part use, to ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... out, and rendered a trial necessary. On this trial, however, there was nothing like satisfactory evidence—the peers were prepared to convict, and they did so on a few trifling attestations, which gave them a plausible excuse for their verdict. The illustrious Bacon aided the king in his object. He had on other occasions shewn abject servility to James—using towards him such expressions of indecorous flattery as these: 'Your majesty imitateth Christ, by vouchsafing me to touch ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... anything vulnerable in the speech to which he replies, and happy in laying the weak point bare to the gaze of the House. He now and then indulges in sarcasm, which is, in most cases, very felicitous. He is plausible even when most in error. When it suits himself or his party he can apply himself with the strictest closeness to the real point at issue; when to evade the point is deemed most politic, no man can wander from ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... character. His ideal is in self-conscious knowledge. Let us have no more Lo, here, with the professor; he very rarely knows what he says he knows; no sooner has he misled the world for a sufficient time with a great flourish of trumpets than he is toppled over by one more plausible than himself. He is but medicine-man, augur, priest, in its latest development; useful it may be, but requiring to be well watched by those who value freedom. Wait till he has become more powerful, and note the vagaries which his ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... had previously been regarded as among the firmest friends of the administration. Its numbers were indeed so small both in Congress and out of it, as to exercise no weight in the call of the ayes and noes, or at the polls; but its members mingled in every debate, wrote plausible essays in the papers, and used all justifiable means as well as some that were questionable, in attaining their ends. Of this party, Mr. Tazewell, though never a member, and only a casual coadjutor, was considered to belong; but there was no evidence to show that ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby |
